EDITORIAL: WHERE DID WE GO WRONG REGARDING PATRIOTIC LEVY?
One aspect of the national budget for the 2021/22 financial year – the so-called ‘patriotic levy’ on mobile telephony money transfers – is already playing merry hell all-round.
As we reported in these pages on July 20 this year, the government amended the Electronic and Postal Communications Act, imposing a ‘patriotic levy’ on all mobile money transactions, based on the sums sent and withdrawn via mobile telephony.
The objective of this was/is to raise Sh1.254 trillion from the service users (both senders and receivers) via mobile telephony companies as their contribution to the Sh36.68 trillion 2021/22 government budget.
Arguably: doesn’t this amount to virtual multiple taxation on the same money the subject-matter of such transfers?
Also, the rates of the new levy are so inordinately high that the values-cum-volumes of mobile money transfers following implementation of the patriotic levy on July 15 this year have drastically plummeted countrywide. One of the direct consequences was intervention by President Samia Suluhu Hassan who just as soon directed the relevant authorities to revisit the highly-controversial ‘patriotic levy’ and rectify matters as appropriate.
Fair enough, we say of the presidential intervention before the issues got out of hand, wreaking havoc on the country’s noble efforts at financial inclusion and the economy at large.
But: exactly what went wrong regarding the levy, whose endorsement went through Parliament and other procedures that finally saw to it being incorporated in our statute books, pray?
Industry and Trade minister Kitila Mkumbo suggests that the government needs professional advice on taxation matters.
But, surely, the government already has a Special Task Force on Tax Reform, a structured forum mandated with shaping the country’s tax regime, and also advise on government budget preparations.
Where did the Task Force and Parliament go wrong, allowing/enabling the adverse, highly controversial ‘patriotic levy’ on mobile money transactions, pray? Where, indeed?
WISHING TANZANIA WELL AT TOKYO 2020
Tanzania is among the world countries that will participate in the Olympic Games whose schedule started in Tokyo, Japan yesterday, and will end on August 8.
The country will field only three runners: two males – Alphonce Simbu and Gabriel Geay – and a female, Failuna Matanga.
Matanga will compete in the Women’s Marathon slated for August 7, while Simbu and Geay will compete in the Men’s Marathon the following day: August 8.
Tanzania planned to field more athletes in the quadrennial Games which feature 11,324 athletes from 205 nations competing in 339 events in 33 sports and 50 disciplines.
However, only these three Tanzanians qualified in full and on time to participate in the Tokyo Games – and the only ones on whom the country relies to win medals despite the formidable challenges from fellow athletes from Marathon-famous countries like Kenya and Ethiopia.
We, therefore, urge our three athletes to be well-focused on the competition – and take the proverbial leaf from the books of Filbert Bayi and Suleiman Nyambui in a past Olympics.
Bayi and Nyambui won Silver medals in the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the 3000m steeplechase and the 5000m races respectively.
Our three Tokyo Olympics hopefuls must remember that millions of their compatriots are anxiously waiting for them to return home laden with medals more than 41 years post-the Bayi/Nyambui return from the Moscow Olympics.
